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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7910166" data-attributes="member: 29398">This is true.All of these can happen now and then, but IME (both as DM and player!) what far more frequently happens is that while the clues have been presented reasonably well the players have either wildly misinterpreted something or latched on to a red herring, and run themselves into a dead end.This brings up another situation that I've used numerous times in the past: they'll go out on an adventure with one goal in mind but there's in fact another goal they don't and can't know about until (unless!) they find it.An example: I converted and ran the 4e adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea, using a backstory where one group of Hobgoblins talks the party into a mission: go into the endless sandstorm to find out and maybe stop whatever an enemy group of Hobgoblins is doing in there. (all the enemy group was doing in there was dying, but nobody knew that)Unknown to anyone, the real goal of the adventure was to find and recover an artifact I'd placed in there which everyone in the desert - including both sides in the Hob war - was thus-far-unsuccessfully looking for.&nbsp; This was the lead-in to what turned out to be a six-adventure arc that, while not perfect, worked out more or less OK.In this case, &quot;that's what the character would do...&quot; is the perfect defense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7910166, member: 29398"] This is true. All of these can happen now and then, but IME (both as DM and player!) what far more frequently happens is that while the clues have been presented reasonably well the players have either wildly misinterpreted something or latched on to a red herring, and run themselves into a dead end. This brings up another situation that I've used numerous times in the past: they'll go out on an adventure with one goal in mind but there's in fact another goal they don't and can't know about until (unless!) they find it. An example: I converted and ran the 4e adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea, using a backstory where one group of Hobgoblins talks the party into a mission: go into the endless sandstorm to find out and maybe stop whatever an enemy group of Hobgoblins is doing in there. (all the enemy group was doing in there was dying, but nobody knew that) Unknown to anyone, the real goal of the adventure was to find and recover an artifact I'd placed in there which everyone in the desert - including both sides in the Hob war - was thus-far-unsuccessfully looking for. This was the lead-in to what turned out to be a six-adventure arc that, while not perfect, worked out more or less OK. In this case, "that's what the character would do..." is the perfect defense. [/QUOTE]

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